Those of you who have gamed with me or seen my AAR will know that most of my infantry figures are based individually: a typical eight-man squad being made up of six figures on 5p pieces and the LSW team of two figures on a 2p piece.

This means that I can remove casualties without the dread "rings of death" ruining the look of the tabletop, and also position them along uneven terrain features as well.

Those are the positives.

The main negative, however, is that it takes an awful lot of time to move individual figures around the tabletop.

I have got around that in the past by using rectangular movement trays as shown in the picture below:

I contacted them a couple of weeks ago asking if they would do some custom bases for me: movement trays that would take my unique squad basing regimen both for 8-man squads and for 10-man squads. Needless to say, they came up trumps.

Here, for the first time, are my patent Avery-bases for IABSM:

Well, this is one of them after I've painted it a simple green and then flocked its upper surface.

You can immediately see that in addition to the holes for the figures, there's even a hole for a mini-dice which, in IABSM, I'll use to note Shock. Other systems could use mini-dice of different colours to differentiate units.

Here's how they look full of figures:

The new bases allow me to move figures around the tabletop quickly and easily, to remove casualties, and to make sure I don't get Shock dice lost or mixed up as well.

Originally posted 22nd April 2012

Talking of Salute, I didn't buy very much, but I did buy some of those nifty explosion markers from Litko to replace the rather tired cotton wool that I usually use...especially as I had run out for the last game and had to use torn up make-up removing pads!

Vis Lardica

Vis Lardica is a website devoted to wargaming and military history, with a special emphasis on the company-sized rulesets produced by the TooFatLardies: I Ain't Been Shot Mum (WW2); Charlie Don't Surf (Vietnam); and Quadrant 13 (science fiction)

Welcome to Vis Lardica, a not-for-profit website mostly dedicated to the company-sized wargaming rules produced by the TooFatLardies, but encompassing my other gaming interests as well.